Ice Cream Inspired Cookies

My plan was to post this tomorrow, but the cookies were so good I couldn't wait to share. Both cookie recipes were inspired from popular ice cream flavors. I made a cookies & cream cookie (with crushed Oreos) and a mint chocolate chip cookie (with Andes mints). They were both delish, but the mint chocolate chip is now one of my all time favorite cookie recipes. No surprise, it was the winning Betty Crocker recipe in 2010.

Cookies & Cream Chocolate Chip Cookies

I found this recipe here from the fabulous blog, lovintheoven.com

Ingredients:

1 stick softened butter 

6 Tablespoons sugar 

6 Tablespoons brown sugar 

1 egg 

1 teaspoon vanilla 

1 ¼ cup flour 

½ teaspoon baking soda 

½ teaspoon salt 

11 Oreo Cookies broken into pieces

1 cup chocolate chips (after trying this recipe I think white chocolate chips might be even better)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Mix butter, and sugars until well combined. Add egg and vanilla until mixed well.

Place flour, baking soda and salt into a large bowl, stir to combine. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients combine well. Gently stir in broken oreos (hint: put oreos in a large ziplock bag to crush them without the mess) and chocolate chips until combined.

With a medium cookie scoop, scoop onto baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet for 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix (this is a powdered mix - you can substitute this for your favorite sugar cookie recipe from scratch and simply add the mint extract, food coloring, chocolate chips and Andes mints)

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

1/2 teaspoon mint extract

8 drops green food coloring

1egg
1 cup creme de menthe baking chips (I used coarsely chopped Andes mints)
1cup semisweet chocolate chunks

Instructions:

Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, stir cookie mix, butter, extract, food color and egg until soft dough forms. 

Stir in creme de menthe baking chips and chocolate chunks. 

Using medium cookie scoop, drop dough 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.  

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Cool 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. 

Enjoy!